


Nothing but Stars

by atenaglory



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alchera, Angst, Earthborn (Mass Effect), War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 03:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9801605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atenaglory/pseuds/atenaglory
Summary: An Earthborn Shepard's history, until her death pre-ME2.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after I finished ME3 a long time ago, and cleaned it up today because I wanted to write and post something. I felt really strongly about how /tired/ Shepard sounds in ME3, and I wanted to put a little bit of that into the rest of the storyline.
> 
> I usually try to make "Shepard" as vague as possible in my writings so that the reader can put their own Shepard in place of mine, but that doesn't really work here, and I apologize for that. Please enjoy reading about my Shepard, Evanna!

Holding her side and stumbling down an alleyway, Shepard made her way back to her shelter. She would be 18 in about a month, and if she could make it that long she could enlist with the Alliance. She leaned against a wall and took a deep breath. Her face stung and she could taste blood. Being a young member of a gang in a megatropolis always meant that someone wanted to kick the shit out of you. People didn’t usually succeed with Shepard, who had learned her way around a fight at a young age to avoid falling prey to slavers, or whoever was prowling the streets of the megatropolises looking for defenseless orphans. With the Tenth Street Reds, Shepard got protection, food, a place to sleep, and a way to vent her frustration at the world, and she tended to find her way through sticky situations—with a pistol, if her silver tongue couldn’t do the job.

Tonight’s ordeal involved some members of a rival gang. Shepard had made a name for herself, in her gang and her city, by getting things done efficiently and thoroughly. Be if theft, smuggling, handling drugs, or keeping law enforcement at bay, Shepard was known to get things done fast, and didn’t ask stupid questions. So naturally, she was specifically targeted by people that wanted to reduce the amount of work the Tenth Street Reds got done. She had been ambushed, while alone, and her capture was supposed to put her gang leaders on alert, and draw them out to rescue her. But if Shepard was good at anything, it was fighting; with the help of her biotics, she had _taken care of_ her captors. Still, they had numbers, and a few of them had managed to get some punches in. One of them had caught her with a bat. As good as she was at fighting, this lifestyle was getting old.

One more month, though.

She sank to the ground and looked up at the sky. Not one of those fabled stars was visible. There were plenty of lights, though. Ships leaving and entering Earth, headed to or back from the Sol Relay. That would be her soon, if she could just push through.

One more month.

 

Four years later, Shepard found herself being awarded the Star of Terra. Everyone had been in awe, had called her a hero and had thanked her. She had simply done what she was good at: fighting. Still, she felt a little proud. At least in this life she wasn’t hurting people needlessly anymore. But there was also a lingering feeling of horror, over what she had seen and done. Instinct, training, and her violent history had taught her how to hold her own in any kind of fight, but war was different. She had killed a lot of people now, and watched a lot of her friends and teammates die. She would have done it again in a heartbeat, but it occurred to her that her actions should not be gloated about. As she heard the thunderous applause, the cheering and the voices shouting her name, celebrating a victory for the Alliance and for humanity, she remembered those who had fought with her. They had all been terrified, and not all of them had been trained for a battle. Shepard had rallied them, knowing that they would not all make it, and she was responsible for those that hadn’t. She wondered if their families were in the crowd, blaming her for the loss of their loved ones. They had all been brave, and they had all fought, but Shepard was the only one receiving recognition. Something in her had caused the terrified colonists and the Alliance soldiers that were on Elysium, off-duty or otherwise, to follow Shepard. She had repelled the attack, but she sacrificed lives to do so.

She accepted the Star of Terra in silence, without so much as a smile.

 

The first human Spectre, and commander of the SSV Normandy, hero of the Skyllian Blitz, N7 operative. Shepard had a lot of good people under her command, now. Her list of titles seemed to keep growing, too. But those didn’t really matter to her, and they shouldn’t matter to anyone. What was important was that Saren needed to be stopped, and Shepard would be the one to stop him.

The crew of the Normandy was still fairly unfamiliar to her, and she didn’t feel comfortable with taking Captain Anderson’s ship, but she was learning fast and the crew followed her orders promptly. Except Joker. He always had something to say. But that didn’t bother Shepard. He was the best pilot around, and she wouldn’t replace him for anything. They kept picking up people to help with the mission, and she was sure that everyone had their opinions about the various backgrounds of her squadmates, but honestly? They had a _Krogan_ now. With Wrex on their side the fighting would definitely be easier, and the crew were likely too scared to be rude to him. A lot of her old friends, more worldly members of the Tenth Street Reds or Alliances trainees that had enlisted with her, had compared her to the Krogan. It was a joke that tended to follow her around. Now she was actually fighting with one. She still laughed to herself, thinking about it sometimes.

In any case, she hoped that the Alliance crew could get over their prejudices. The Krogan, Asari, Quarians, and _especially_ the Turians all had their own reputations within human circles, and naturally the ambitious humans, who already had a Spectre in the Citadel Council (thanks to their aggressive Ambassador, who was obviously jockeying for a position as the first human Councilor), had their reputation as well. But Shepard wanted the Normandy to be a neutral ground, where they could all let go of their prejudices. This was a fight against Saren, and there was really no time to fight against each other. Shepard knew that there was not straight line to beating Saren, but she would see it done.

 

Less than a year later, it _was_ done.

Except, it wasn’t.

Sovereign had taken a discouraging amount of force, luck, and blood to defeat, and to think that there were more of these _things_ …. Shepard had never had much of an opinion of Synthetics before, but after so much time and effort spent fighting Geth, dealing with those husks, and fighting Sovereign, it was starting to feel like they were the enemy. Still, Shepard needed to find more information on the Reapers, and the Council was getting in her way. They kept sending her out to the Terminus Systems to hunt for Geth, which she already knew were only a symptom of the larger problem: the Reapers. And it didn’t take much deductive reasoning to realize that the Council didn’t want the Reapers to be real, and so they kept sending her away so that she would stop bothering them with what they had surely chosen to believe were the ravings of an obsessed human. She knew that Anderson was doing what he could, but it wasn’t enough. Where Shepard and the Reapers were concerned, Anderson was alone on the Council.

It was just as well, though. She didn’t have any leads, and the mission had been to take care of Saren. She’d sent Garrus, Tali, and Wrex back off to fulfill their goals. Kaidan was gone. Ashley and Liara would stay with her until she figured out what was going on. She had to. If no one else even believed in the Reapers, who else could stop them?

Or so she had thought.

The first human Spectre.

Commander of the Normandy.

N7 Operative.

Hero of the Skyllian Blitz.

Alliance soldier.

Gangster.

Street rat.

Orphan.

How were the kids from her old gang doing these days? They had probably never escaped that life. She wished she could have saved them, like she’d saved herself.

She would be seeing the people she lost during the Skyllian Blitz again soon. She knew they would be proud of her, and wouldn’t resent her for sacrificing them. They were good people, and they had deserved more than she could give them.

She had saved Joker, though. Liara and Ash had made it. She didn’t know who else had. She’d probably be seeing some of the Normandy’s crew on the other side, too.

She couldn’t breathe.

She saw the wreckage of her beloved ship all around her, as she drifted up towards Alchera.

She was going to die.

She wasn’t even halfway done with her work. But she was going to die. 29 years old, but all she had done was fight for her whole life. She had left her mark, but that hadn’t even been her intention.

The Alliance had given her something to fight for. Although she hadn’t been able to finish her job, she couldn’t say that she was dissatisfied.

She thought back to that night, a month before her 18th birthday. She had been so hopeful, so ready to finally see the stars. Now here she was, surrounded by nothing but stars and the wreckage of her life. It didn’t matter how hard she fought anymore. Here, in the endless expanse, with no air and no gravity, was where it would end. How fitting.

And yet, although she would never tell anyone after they brought her back, she didn’t want to fight any more in the end. She had looked out into the void, and, after pain, panic, loss, and horror, she felt relief. She felt that _finally_ she could rest. Finally she didn’t have to fight anymore.


End file.
